Friday, February 13, 2015

"One who increases his possessions by usury and extortionGathers it for him who will pity the poor."Proverbs 28:8

Cahnman's Musings has previously reported on U.T. regent nominee David Beck's role in creating the forgivable loan program at the heart of the financial scandals clouding U.T. Austin. Simultaneously, our colleagues at Agendawise discovered that David Beck is a senior partner in the law firm representing the Texas "Ethics" Commission against Empower Texans. As the San-Antonio Express News explained last August:

But the state campaign finance and lobby regulator has decided to forego representation from [the Attorney General's] office in a series of district court lawsuits brought by Sullivan, opting instead to dig into its own coffers to hire prominent Houston-based law firm Beck Redden.

Last week, this author placed an open records request to the "Ethics" commission to discover how much they've payed David Beck's law firm during this fiasco. Based on their response to the request, they've spent $29,862.67 since June. Obviously, this assumes the "Ethics" commission was truthful in their response.

Empower Texans has been a vocal critic of the University of Texas status quo. For a regent nominee to be a partner in a law firm that has billed almost $30 GRAND defending the Texas "Ethics" Commission's vendetta against Empower Texans raises MAJOR red flags. Cahnman's Musings strongly encourages the Texas Senate to ask about this conflict-of-interest at David Beck's confirmation hearing.